The editor of Canada's top medical journal has been fired six weeks after accusing the journal's owners of censoring a story.

Dr. John Hoey, a 10-year editor of the Ottawa-based Canadian Medical Association Journal, as well as deputy editor Anne Marie Todkill, were fired Monday afternoon after a dispute over the story about women seeking the "morning after" pill being questioned by pharmacists about their sex lives.

Dr. Donald Redelmeier, a member of the journal's editorial board and a professor of medicine at the University of Toronto, said the dismissals were conducted "in a manner that was unexpected and unexplained."